Porcelain
by Working-On-Sanity
Summary: Talk of Sasuke's curse was taboo. No one could tell Naruto that his teenage lover was nothing more than a living toy doll. Even though Sasuke is a doll, he is subjected to the passion of love - but how long can he stand it before his porcelain shatters?


**PORCELAIN **

**SUMMARY: **Speaking of Sasuke's curse was taboo, whether you knew about it or not. You couldn't tell Naruto that his teenage lover was nothing more than a living toy doll. Sasuke might be a doll, but even he is subjected to the euphoric sensation of being loved – and he in turn loves Naruto back until emotion tears at his physical body. Was it _really_ Sasuke's curse that ended his life as a breathing soul, or was it truly possible to 'love someone to death?'

**AUTHOR'S NOTE: This is the prologue, and it is longer than the following chapters will be. The story will be somewhat vague at first, then after Sasuke's introduction, more will be revealed about everyone's backgrounds. I remember my muse/best friend, **_**midori-desu**_**, telling me several months ago that she was looking forward to this fiction – so I hope she hasn't forgotten about it! **

**This will not contain any explicit kind of boy's love, since there is such a huge age difference between Sasuke and Naruto, but Naruto will be more like a guardian/father figure to Sasuke. There will be subtle romance though, but I'm sure that's not exactly what you're after, is it? XD**

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><p><strong>Chapter One: STORM<strong>

"I swear that I didn't have this much trash in here," Naruto proclaimed dramatically, his grease-smudged fingers still pressed to the cracked light-switch in awed disbelief.

Sakura continued to snap the large wad of purple gum between her teeth, her half-lidded emerald gaze flicking from one side of the closet to the other. The bitter scent of perspiration and mildew clogged the atmosphere, and Naruto began to shift with uncomfortable embarrassment at his sister's lack of enthusiasm.

"I really don't remember where any of this garbage came from," he reiterated, peering down in defeat at the chaotic collection of odd pieces of rubbish and wrinkled cardboard cartons that were straining to hold in their contents of decade-old manga, ancient glass soda bottles, and tattered stuffed animals.

Sakura exhaled deeply, raking the slender fingers of one hand through her bleached tangles of strawberry-blonde hair and sending the ratted ends in all directions as jagged spikes.

"You're still a slob," she stated flatly, the freckled bridge of her nose crinkling in blatant disgust as she nudged the round toe of her canvas sneaker against the corner of a box. A miniature mushroom of blanket lint and soft dust swirled upwards, gathering in a halo around the bare light bulb that was suspended by multicolored wires from the ceiling.

"I can't believe that you're forty-two years old, and you can't even keep your trailer looking half-way decent," she muttered in distaste. "No wonder I'm the only girl who's ever been inside this dump."

Naruto's expression crumpled in mock offense. "Aw, Sakura," he whined weakly, somewhat insulted by the jibe. "It isn't that bad. All we need to do is cart out the junk, and sort the things that I want to keep here. It won't take very long at all."

To demonstrate the process, he leaned over, lifting from inside a crate a newspaper that was crumpled beyond repair. Shaking it lightly, jarring the dried bodies of gossamer-like moths from the paper, he simply dropped it into the confines of an oversized plastic bag.

"See? Newspapers from last year – they can go into the trash. But my soccer magazines – I want to keep all of those. Put them off to the side," he ordered.

Cheerfully, he plopped to the ground, tugging his legs into a comfortable crossed position, and began to paw through the contents of a decrepit cardboard bin.

"Geez," Sakura muttered thickly, scowling at the clutter and the complicated routine. Despite desperately wishing that she could be at home, or even at the veterinary office where she held a job status, she obediently knelt beside her younger brother and proceeded to gingerly pluck at the flap of a box.

"So, why are you actually cleaning?" she inquired cattily, flicking away a thread of spider silk. "Health inspector coming over?" She smirked sweetly at Naruto, her eyes closing in the intensity of the false smile.

"Why, no" the blonde drawled in a sugary tone, matching her attitude and fake grin. His prominent canine teeth glinted in the stark white light as he foxily tilted his head, his icy-blue eyes crinkling at the corners.

"Actually," he continued, "I'm thinking of asking that crazy car saleswoman out. Karin, you know who she is? She's got the scruffy red hair, and the glasses," he pointed at the middle of his face for emphasis.

"We've been friends ever since I bought the old Nissan from her, and she's always really nice, so I thought I'd take her out as something in return."

Sakura blankly stared at him, her brow creased with confusion. "And all of that somehow leads up to you cleaning out your _closet_." Abruptly, her glossy pink lips split in a suggestive sneer, and Naruto immediately realized his blunder.

"_Please_, Sakura!" He clamped his palms over the sides of his head, as though attempting to block out her taunting voice. "I'm not going out with her because I think of her as a girlfriend! It's like when I take _you _out for lunch. It's not romantic, it's what is called a 'courteous gesture.'"

"Oh, fine," the woman huffed indignantly. "If that's the way you see it. But really, though, why are you rooting around in here? I hope you aren't planning any other stunts," she warned viciously, brandishing a cracked glass pop bottle above her head with a threatening glint sparkling in her eyes.

Naruto blinked with forced innocence. "What do you mean by 'other stunts?'" he repeated tonelessly. "Anyway – Karin told me awhile back that she collects all these weird foreign knick-knacks. I remembered that I have all these things that I brought back with me from America when we lived there, and I thought that maybe we could find something that she'd like."

"Nothing that isn't covered in dead spiders and dust," Sakura commented, poking her finger against a battered, grass-stained soccer ball. "You have heaps of things we brought over, though. Should be lots to choose from, you know?"

"Yeah, Dad found a bunch of those pamphlets that they gave us during our tour through New York City, and – hey!" he suddenly interjected, half-buried in the darkened depths of a reused refrigerator box. "Look at this!"

Emerging, his silvery-blonde hair mussed and sticking to his sweat-moistened forehead, Naruto clutched a paper-wrapped parcel in his arms. The bundle was large and clumsy, the packing wrap yellowed with age, and an unintelligible writing that was most likely a compilation of English phrases lined the material.

"What's that?" the girl questioned, cracking her gum to punctuate her words. She squinted carefully at the odd penmanship, looking up at her sibling for explanation.

"Don't have a clue," he admitted. "I've never seen it before – it's probably one of those antiques that Mom bought in Washington twenty years ago. Maybe this will be something for Karin," he realized, brightening as the concept became close to reality.

"Well, open it," Sakura urged, bending over his shoulder and pressing her chest against his back in her eagerness. Naruto sent her a warily-irritated glance, but ignored her presence in the following seconds that he peeled away the package's faded wrapping.

Nestled in the numerous layers of ripped paper was a fragile, extravagantly-clothed doll. It was certainly not something that looked as if it had been conceived in America – it appeared to have been made in the likeness of a young Asian boy. A Japanese boy, most believably, as it had been meticulously dressed in traditional Oriental garb. Heavy burgundy silk robes flowed from its shoulders and draped its sides, and an intricate thread of onyx chunks was laced around its slender neck.

Ink-like tufts of hair protruded from the back of its head and fell against its cheeks in curtain-like bangs, drawing attention to its almond-shaped, liquid ebony eyes. Its painted lips, though carved from fine, delicate porcelain, seemed as though they would be supple and soft to the touch.

As if entranced by the deep-set black eyes, Naruto gently stroked the pad of his thumb over the doll's mouth, silently in awe of how cold and smooth the tip of the glossed tongue felt against his fingertips.

"Gee whiz, is Karin going to have a royal _fit _over him or what?" The low wolf whistle of admiration brutally interrupted his thoughts, and the man turned to his sister with a wretched expression twisting his angular features.

"Sakura!" he snapped self-righteously, hugging the doll to his chest protectively and sliding his strong fingers through its threads of soft hair. "This is p-probably Mom's, okay? We should give it back. Who knows how long it's been in my closet? She might be missing it or something like that!"

Sakura snorted in ill-hidden laughter, her shamrock-green eyes flickering with amusement. "Okay, okay. I won't fuss about it," she vowed, holding her hands in front of her face to ward off any impending blows.

"And I also won't tell anyone that my baby brother has a _doll fetish_!" she wickedly giggled, pointedly ramming her elbow into the blonde's ribs.

Naruto cringed, fiercely cradling the bulky figure in his arms to hide its oblivious face from Sakura's prying gaze.

"It isn't that I _want_ to keep it," he protested weakly. "It's just that this isn't something Karin would like. It's Japanese – it was made here, where we live. She likes all this imported stuff. German things..." He let his grating voice trail into silence when he realized that his sister was no longer focused on the conversation.

"Sakura? Is something wrong?" he inquired, genuinely concerned about the woman's well-being. Her round eyes were clouded by a misty glaze, as though she was completely out of the range of being capable to respond.

Fear knotted itself in Naruto's stomach, and he hastily stood, messily covering the doll with the crumpled packaging paper and returning it to the refrigerator carton. The moment he stumbled to Sakura's side, wincing at the pins-and-needles sensation agonizing his feet, the strawberry-blonde blinked dazedly as if just awakening from sleep.

"Naruto?" she murmured, peering intently into his cerulean eyes. He had stepped so close that she could see the cut ends of light gold whiskers speckled across his jaw, and she suddenly smacked her hand to her wide forehead in self-admonishment.

"Golly, Naruto, I'm sorry," she apologized. "It doesn't matter to me if you keep the doll or whatever, but, um, anyway, I think I've got to go home, now. I, uh, still have to fix lunch for Konohamaru, don't you remember?" She tapped her neon-green polished fingernail against the glass face of her wristwatch, and after bidding him farewell, made a hasty retreat to the safety of her own trailer.

_Something was definitely wrong with her, and I didn't even do anything, _Naruto silently observed. _Really, now, I know she's not that excited about throwing together a box lunch for her bratty adopted son. Any other time she'd do everything she could to keep from going back home to him._

Exhaling in defeat, the man awkwardly stood, scrubbing his fingertips into his gel-stiffened spikes of flaxen hair. Besides playful bantering, he hadn't intentionally insulted Sakura – shaking his head wearily, he decided to ask her about the matter at a later time.

He paced back into the stale environment of the closet, the piles of trash appearing much larger and more complicated than they had five minutes before. His forgotten belongings seemed to be connected each to another in impossible tangles – the entire mess was swimming in his vision, the assortment of colors melting into one another as a muddy-gray pool.

_Great, _he muttered sarcastically to himself as he rubbed his knuckles against his closed eyelid. _Now I'm not feeling too well. My eyes probably look the same as Sakura's did... there _is _a funny feeling in the air through here, though_, he realized, interested in detecting the source of the ominous presence.

_It's like how it smells outside before a bad storm. The air gets all thick and heavy, and smells sort of wet, and then everything combines into a crackly feeling that goes all the way down my back. Like someone's constantly watching me from behind without turning away._

At that unbidden thought, Naruto grimaced, suddenly anxious to be rid of the frightening sensation. It was that same swelling sense of panic in his belly that made his pulse pound in the side of his neck and his palms go sticky with sweat.

Hurriedly, he squatted near the refrigerator box, digging through its contents to close his large hands around the paper-bundled doll. He jerked it from its packaging, letting the paper drift to the ground, and pressed the porcelain body to his collarbone mercilessly.

His last fiber of courage to remain in the overwhelming feeling of terror was breaking into useless wisps – he turned, the rubber sole of his shoe squeaking against the linoleum, and fled from the room, blindly fumbling for the light switch. Darkness fell heavily, and he forcefully yanked the door closed behind him to seal it from his sight.

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><p>Naruto leaned over the wash basin, squinting idly into the fogged mirror to scrutinize his reflection. He did so every evening after soaking himself in the bathtub full of an Epsom salt mixture, without really knowing why. He supposed that looking at himself comforted him, in a way – he never seemed to change. Even when everything he was familiar with was rapidly advancing and leaving him far behind, it soothed him to see that there was never really anything different about his own appearance.<p>

Sighing with undisguised boredom, the blonde brushed his fingertips over his rough cheek, lightly stroking his thumb over the tattooed black lines that slashed across his jaw. It brought back to surface the memory of having the tattoos inked in, and he remembered the shocked reactions that his family had displayed in response to the sight of his new fox-like whiskers.

A wistful smile stretching his pale lips taut, he busied himself by snatching a towel from the pantry, scrubbing it into his damp chunks of lemonade-colored hair. Drowsiness overtook him as he rubbed the moisture from his scalp, and he decided that, after changing into some loose, baggy shorts, he would crawl into his bed to watch the weather-report channel on television. Something about the odd, frightening atmosphere in his closet still bothered him, and although the theory seemed unlikely, he told himself that it had been nothing more than the humidity-choked air before a thunderstorm.

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><p>By late afternoon, the matter had completely escaped the premises of Naruto's mind. He had promptly drifted into a light sleep following the conclusion of the weather predictions program, and when a particularly loud commercial startled him awake, he only stretched out over the thick mattress with a gusty, draining sigh.<p>

Sluggishly, he crossed his arms and rested his chin on his wrists, sleepily watching as the lace-like gray shadows flickered across the bare wall of his bedroom. He was rather fond of the way that the evening sun managed to wash everything in a soft orange glow, and sometimes, he enjoyed the carefree feeling of summer to such an extent that he would pretend to be a child once more, hanging upside down from the side of his bed to let the crisp breeze from the air vent whistle through his hair.

Abandoning any caution that warned him of the foolishness of being so rambunctious at his age, he flipped over, letting his torso fall from the bed. A cheerful smile brightened his features as he closed his eyes, letting that gentle orange hue spread across his closed eyelids.

_Summer feels so nice_, he purred quietly, relishing the warmth that touched his cheeks. _I kind of wish we could have spent another year in America, though, so we could have visited Maine for our vacation. Let's see... we've lived in Japan for fifteen years, now, and I still get tongue-tied and start speaking English at times. _

After soaking in his own thoughts for several peace-filled minutes, he finally peered up through the sheet of rosy light. A contented feeling buzzed down his spine, and when he pushed himself back up to a sitting position, letting the blood drain from his face to leave it a bronzed tan, he noticed the Japanese doll.

He had forgotten about it completely. After toting it to his room, he had placed it safely on the shelf, away from his sister's reach. As tauntingly beautiful as the doll had appeared that morning, now, with its youthfully-rounded face darkened by shadow, it seemed almost eerie as it glared down at Naruto.

"Hm?" he vocalized anxiously, startling himself by acknowledging an unasked question. Something about the lovely doll's eyes scraped against his nerves – it was as if round orbs of coal had been set aflame, searing holes through his forehead.

Uncomfortably, he shifted, and when turning away did little to relieve his sudden nervousness, he stood to his feet, pacing boldly to the shelf to whisk the figure out of sight. The option of pushing the doll beneath his bed bothered him, as he felt it would be almost disrespectful – but he really didn't want it to stare at him all during the night, either.

Weighing his choices, he supposed that having an uninterrupted evening would be preferable. He swiftly pushed the doll under the frame of the bed, guilt nudging at his conscious as he tugged the tuna fish-print blankets down. Clambering beneath the fleece coverings, he tugged the flat pillow over his head to hide the prodding sunlight, and fitfully attempted to return into the pleasant dullness of sleep.

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><p><em>It's coming closer. The storm – look at how the lightning's like jagged ribbons through the clouds. The thundering is awful. It sounds like those bass drums in the orchestra at Ao Kono Theater. It's rattling the pictures on the wall – what's going on? The clouds look like eyes now... pretty, black eyes. Why is the lightning turning into blue tears? The thunder is the sound of someone crying. <em>

A deafening crash exploded through the air, and with a strangled cry, Naruto bolted upright. He closed his fists around his blankets, tugging them up to his chest as if to protect himself – his heart hammered viciously against the inside of his chest as he released the covers, fumbling blindly about for the flashlight that rested on his nightstand.

Shakily, he snapped the switch to its 'on' position, squinting in the sudden beam of weakly-flickering yellow light. He boldly directed the brightness toward each corner of his room, jerking the flashlight from side to side and illuminating every article in the area. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary, he gratefully observed, until a elongated shadow spread over the oval of light.

The whites of his eyes engulfing the pinpricks of blue, the blonde sharply inhaled, swinging the torch to follow the staggering figure that stumbled across the floor.

He felt his mouth go dry at the sight, and the concept of having a stranger wandering his home made nausea creep into his throat.

"Get out of my house!" he roared, adrenaline coursing through his veins and spurring his courage into action. "You have five seconds to get out of my house before I blow a hole right through your head!"

As proof of his intentions, he clamped his teeth around the flashlight, craning his neck to keep the light fixed on the trembling body, and tore open the drawer of his nightstand with his free hand. His fingers swept over the chilled metal of his hand pistol, and without further thought, he swept the gun in front of himself, firmly gripping the weapon. His forefinger pressed steadily against the trigger as he aimed the barrel directly at the center of the stranger's body, which was now unmoving and crumpled on the floor.

"Get out," he repeated, returning the flashlight to his hand and hissing the words through his teeth. He stiffly stood from the bed, the glare from the torch reflecting from the mirror and bouncing back to highlight his steely eyes. His footsteps squeaked over the hardwood floor, and no threads of mercy wound about his conscious as he cautiously stalked toward the small heap of a person.

"Are you _stupid_?" the blonde snapped waveringly, shoving his foot against the intruder's hip. The infliction of pain elicited no reaction other than a soft whimper, at which Naruto immediately trained his gun on the stranger's head.

The boy was lying face-down in a compressed ball, his knees tucked into the crook of his body and his arms wrapped around his own middle in the fetal position. As if he had just gotten the wind knocked from his lungs, he was breathing rather shallowly, and even with the tall, muscular blonde man towering over him, boasting the ownership of a pistol, the trespasser did nothing to defend himself from certain harm.

Momentarily, Naruto's confidence began to thin. He felt rather foolish for attacking someone who hadn't even made an advance on him, but even so, the person had been meandering through his trailer, uninvited – if that didn't qualify as someone with wrong intentions, then he really didn't know what did.

"What is stinkin' _wrong _with you?" he demanded scornfully, gingerly kicking his toe against the boy's side. His aim not once moving off-target, he lowered the gun closer to the back of the stranger's head and warningly cocked it with a metallic click.

"Get up and let me see your face before I call the police," he ordered sternly, clenching his teeth against a heated growl of mixed irritation and fury. He vaguely noticed that the small body was quivering, as if silently sobbing out his apologies, but he quickly discarded the concept of the 'thief' having any amount of courtesy.

When there was no attempt made at complying with his request, he roughly smacked his hand into the small head, brutally curling his fingers into the oddly-silky dark spikes of hair, and wrenched the intruder's face upwards so that he was wincing in the fullness of the flashlight's glare.

Naruto choked back a quick intake of breath, the suddenly-cold air prickling his throat. His heart rate hastened to drum loudly behind his ribcage as he dumbly stared into the moist, tear-clouded eyes.

He saw nothing but those eyes. They were an onyx that seemed to swallow the light, they were so impossibly black, yet they glistened with a sheen of liquid. Deep-set, like the innocent eyes of a doe, and exotically almond-shaped.

Naruto didn't release his grip on the boy's hair, mesmerized by the coal-like orbs and the tears that pearled in the corners of the entrancing eyes. Any thought of repaying the trespasser for his unbidden entrance into his home drifted from his mind.

_Black eyes, _he realized hollowly. _The storm turned into those black eyes. The lightning turned into tears of turquoise. But there's no thunder... the sound of someone crying. He's crying without using his voice. _

He never shifted his gaze. Neither the boy nor Naruto dared to blink.

_Those eyes... they're the same as that doll's. They're identical._

He didn't have to rummage beneath his bed to realize that the porcelain figurine wasn't there. He just couldn't figure out why the doll was now trembling beneath his hand as it pitifully stared up at him.

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><p><strong>NEXT CHAPTER: BITTERNESS <strong>

Despite Naruto constantly interrogating the boy during the remainder of the night, not a single explanation is offered. He can't understand _why _the porcelain doll he had held that morning is now a moving, breathing teenage boy, and he refuses to believe that the boy really is the china figurine.

Soon, his sister learns of the situation, and once again, the moment she lays eyes on the nervous living doll, she becomes dazed. Naruto can't figure out why 'Sasuke' seems to bewitch any person he glares at, but he decides that he shouldn't be the one to handle this. No matter how much he wants to be rid of the burden that is Sasuke, it seems that Sasuke doesn't want to be rid of him.

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><p><strong>AUTHOR'S NOTE: I wanted to switch around with the characters' personalities, writing them differently than I usually do. Naruto is going to be the slightly-poetic, middle-aged 'father' character, while Sakura is going to the be kind-of-bratty older sister. Sasuke, of course, is going to be the small, anxious child who clings to Naruto and is desperate for attention from him – though he gets the wrong kind, wink wink.<strong>

**As for the Uzumaki family's heritage – they are all American, and as Naruto mentioned, they moved to Japan fifteen years ago. There will be NaruSasu in the fiction, but it will be somewhat forced on Sasuke by Naruto, since Naruto is twenty-eight years older than Sasuke and the poor dolly doesn't really know anything about romance and physical gestures of affection.**

**That means kissing. **

**As a final note, there will be no NaruKarin. I also am uncertain of how the fiction will be thought of, since it's much different than what I usually write, but please overlook the cliche Pinocchio transformation. **

**If you have any suggestions, constructive criticism, or even an idea, don't be too shy to tell me, hon. **


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